Total Articles: 10

Dear Littler: We are going to replace the punch-card timeclocks in our U.S. facilities with timeclocks that allow employees to “clock in” each day using their fingerprint. I’ve read about a flood of recently filed class action litigation against companies that collected biometric information and understand that many of these cases have been filed against employers that use biometric timeclocks. Can we go ahead and roll out the timeclocks? Or is there something more that we need to do?

Time clock rounding is a longstanding employer practice whereby employers round employee starting and stopping times to the nearest five minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Is the practice legal? For over 50 years, a federal regulation has authorized the practice, but until recently, no federal appellate court had endorsed the practice. In May of 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that an employer’s time clock rounding procedures complied with federal law in Corbin v. Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership, 821 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir. 2016).

Much like a mom doesn't have to parcel out her kids' ice cream into servings that are exactly equal, an employer doesn't have to ensure that its policy of rounding employees' time stamps evens out perfectly, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Q. We keep track of work hours for non-exempt employees using an electronic timekeeping system. For our exempt employees, we really have no records of how many hours they are working each day or week. Are we required to? Even if it's not required, should we?

The best defense for employers confronted with claims of “off-the-clock”, (i.e., unrecorded) work under the FLSA are accurate contemporaneous time records created by employees based on clearly communicated time keeping practices. The effectiveness of such records was recently demonstrated in Roberts v. Advocate Health Care, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103631 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 7, 2015).

This past spring (here and here), I discussed rounding time clock punches (usually automatically with a time clock system) at the beginning and end of a shift. To recap briefly, rounding is the practice of adjusting time clock punch times within specific bounds. For example, if your employees punch in for work at 7:57, 8:01, and 8:02, your rounding rules may treat all of those punches as occurring at 8:00 a.m. for payroll purposes.

In my last post, I discussed how the FLSA approaches the “rounding” of time. In short, rounding is simply the practice of adjusting time clock punch times within specific bounds. For example, if your employees punch in for work at 7:57, 8:01, and 8:02, your rounding rules may treat all of those punches as occurring at 8:00 a.m. for payroll purposes. Here are a few pointers that I mentioned would help you avoid some of the risks associated with rounding your employees’ time entries.

Sitting down to dinner but still have a long to-do list from the office? Hear your work e-mails pinging as you watch the game? Not a problem that you can’t handle with your smartphone or tablet. Whatever your take on this 24/7 connectivity, it is undeniable that the proliferation of mobile devices has made working away from the office easier and perhaps expected by employers (and clients). While such a policy may result in an increase in productivity, it can also create a legal risk for employers, namely, unexpected claims for overtime pay.

The Department of Labor has entered the digital age with a splash, and has announced the launch of its first application for smartphones. That app is a timesheet to help employees independently track regular work hours, break time and any overtime hours for one or more employers. Individuals also can access a glossary, contact information and materials about wage laws through links to the Web pages of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division. According to the DOLâ€™s news release, users will be able to add comments on any information related to their work hours; view a summary of work hours in a daily, weekly and monthly format; and email the summary of work hours and gross pay as an attachment.

For many years, some employers have chosen to "round" non-exempt employees' worktime in computing wages. This is emerging as another recurring claim in the continuing flood of lawsuits filed under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. If you believe that ending such a procedure would cause your wage costs to increase, this is a danger signal.